Stream of Consciousness: Cleanliness, Pride, and Marriage

Well, here's just a general outline of what's going on in my head this morning:

Cleanliness:

I have a very messy room right now. I need to do laundry. I have very strange laundry habits....everything I own is in laundry baskets (4 of them). My baskets are labeled 1) dirty white 2) clean white 3) dirty dark 4) clean dark. When all of the laundry is in the dirty dark and dirty white baskets (they match up perfectly) I do laundry and have all clean white and dark...and then repeat the cycle.

Unfortunately, this makes my room look pretty messy...and it also makes my clothes often come out wrinkled. However, I have my ways of getting wrinkles out without using an iron (something I'm morally opposed to).

This got me to thinking about my overall cleanliness. Let me tell you a bit about my history in this area.

When I was young I had a messy room. A very messy room. One day parents forced me to clean that room. I spent the entire day cleaning and I swore to myself I'd never have a messy room again. I became a neat freak. And, since I'm not very good at moderation, I became so clean it was unhealthy. My perfectionist tendencies led to me becoming slightly (maybe not slightly) OCD. Soon, everything in my room had to be in the exact right spot, if someone was in my room I could tell. I had to have everything pristine, vacuumed, and where I had left it....the only thing I never did was dust (dust was how I could tell if someone had moved something).

I went on this way for years. But, it all came to a head when one night I was staying the night at my Grandma's house and I began to worry about whether or not my room was clean while I was gone. I thought about this for a second and realized that was a crazy thought. I began to be a little bit scared so I decided to fight my OCD. I talked with Garett about it and he recommended that I leave one object out of place until I was comfortable with it. So, I did this. Every day I'd try to a little bit more messy.

At first I just left one thing out. I would often stare at it sitting on my pristine floor and I'd fight the urge to put it away. Soon I was able to tolerate two things, then three, then I could even leave my bed unmade...In time, through hard work and dedication, I was successful: I became messy (but healthy-minded).

So, I hope that if you ever see my room you don't see clothes stacked up and items out of place. I hope you don't see " just another messy guy's apartment." Instead, I hope you see a wonderful success story. I hope you see me overcoming my negative tendencies. In fact, when you see my room, I hope you see a testament to the triumph of the human spirit.

Pride:
I'm stupid. Really, I am. Last night my roommate asked if I was hungry, and I was, so we went to get food. Now, he's from Mexico...he puts hot sauce on everything. I also like hot sauce on everything. So, we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant. So authentic in fact that I couldn't order for myself cause no one spoke English. So authentic that it was next door to an outdoor market. So authentic that while you eat they have Mexican soap operas playing on a big screen (crazy soap operas by the way...I saw a monkey balancing on a beam wearing a funny hat while a lady with bandages on her head weeped and a man dressed like a robot played a ukulele--I'll never be the same). Anyway, this place was very authentic.

When I got inside I ordered my meal by pointing. I know what a torta is (sandwich) so I got one. I pointed at the appropriate one and the guy looked at me like "yeah right, pick another." I insisted and he made the motion pointing to his tongue and waved at it like he was fanning flames and said caliente! caliente! I nodded and said "I know." He looked at me again, noticed my obvious extra white man status and shook his head again. My roommate took over for me at this point and explained in Spanish that I was aware of the spiciness and I was okay with it. The guy still looked at me skeptically, but he relented (I think he was afraid I wouldn't be able to eat it and I'd complain or something).

Anyway, my roommate ordered the same thing and soon our food was brought out. They brought out our sandwiches with the hot sauce on the side (those careful people). They gave both of us a bowl filled with the hot sauce they'd normally drench the sandwich in....they gave us quite a lot. I'm pretty sure the bowl had way more hot sauce than the sandwich could handle if they had poured it on. Anyway we got started eating.

My roommate started to pour the hotsauce on...as he poured a little he looked at me, I poured a little and I looked at him, we kept on going back and forth until basically the whole bowl was empty and our sandwiches were completely saturated in hot sauce. Then he took a bite and he said "oh man, this is really hot!" I took a bite and I agreed...but it was tolerable so I got to work.

Now, the problem when eating really spicy foods isn't so much the spiciness in the mouth--it's what it does to your stomach. About halfway through the meal my roommate says "oh man, my stomach is turning." So far I was okay so I kept on eating. We both finished our meals (and ate all the hot sauce) and sat down and then I started to feel it. I looked at him and said "what have I done?" My stomach felt like there was a boulder in it, and the boulder wasn't stationary, it was somehow rolling in my stomach and banging around everything inside. We got home and had some ice cream (helps to dilute the spiciness) but all to no avail. I eventually went to bed and I woke up around 4 or so cause my stomach just wasn't happy.

Anyway, now I'm up, and blogging. It was really dumb to eat that much hot sauce, no one should eat that much hot sauce. I just had something to prove cause 1) that guy thought I couldn't do it cause I was white and 2) I had to have > or = to what my roommate had...there is a pecking order that must be maintained. So, I'm a stupid guy, I let my pride get in the way of my health...not the first time.

Last thing on my mind: Marriage.

Yesterday I had a very long discussion with a good friend in the philosophy major (warning: this section won't make sense to a non-Mormon so feel free to skip). He asked me the question "why do you think it's necessary to get married in this life? It seems to me that we're the least qualified to make that decision at this time, we'd make a far better choice in the life to come, so why get married now?"

I have thought about this myself. We started working it out. Here are the downsides....

When we get married now we make our decision at probably the most immature time in our lives. We're in our early twenties normally, we make the decision on things like beauty and neglect the important things like maturity, kindness, constancy, and loyalty.

Divorce rates demonstrate our own ineffectiveness in making this decision.

Marrying in this life implies it's not important who you marry. Here is why:
If compatibility for eternity was important, it would make sense to make this sort of eternal decision when you understood the consequences of eternity....when you really could see people as they are. But this way makes it so you can marry someone that's not all that good for you. So, if a poorly matched marriage lasts forever you have 2 options. Either 1) you will forever be married to someone that's not that great for you or 2) somehow it all comes out in the wash and it doesn't matter who you marry so being married for eternity to someone who wasn't the best for you in mortality isn't a problem. If it's option 1 then that's depressing and it's a bad system. If it's 2 then it doesn't matter who you marry and we place way too much emphasis on finding someone compatible (this also diminishes the uniqueness of the relationship if compatibility doesn't matter). Now one might argue that only successful marriages are eternal. But on that note, just think about this. Imagine all of the spirits that have existed on this earth, and then imagine that each is unique. Then realize you're unique. If you keep in mind that in the next life we'll know each other as we really are...without weaknesses in language, imperfections in the body, sicknesses of the mind holding us back...we could adequately evaluate the compatibility we would share with each person. Now, taking all the billions of spirits that have inhabited just this world....Okay, now what are the odds that you married the person best for you? You have better odds winning the lottery 3 times in a row. It's just not practical to think you'd find your best match---even if it is a wonderful match. So, given this system it seems that the match isn't important.

So, that's the problem. Now the question is whether or not we can find reasons to justify what seems to be an ineffective system. Here are the reasons we came up with.

1) Mortality is the most vulnerable time in your existence, this causes great danger but it also causes great advances. We grow faster in this life than we do in the next. So, if you want to grow together with someone, this is the best time to do it. In this life we're maleable and we're forging who we'll be for eternity, if we connect at this time, and start our path together, it follows that we'll grow closer than we would otherwise. It would be more difficult to have two unique and eternally independent individuals find ways to be there for each other. In eternity I'm sure people are more set in their ways, it would be harder to adapt to being with someone else at that time. Also, our vulnerability at this time forces us to rely on each other (thereby growing closer together). If there are few or no needs in the next life we could not be there for each other and grow together as a result. We're building our eternal selves now, after this life the product has already taken shape...it's far easier to install something (bad way to refer to marriage...sorry) before the project is finished than after the fact. So, marriage is better now.

2) In the words of Benedict from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing....."The world must be peopled!"

We need a way to introduce life, and although I'm sure God could do it in another way, this is the pattern he follows so we do the same.

3) We get the experience of suffering as a parent. There are some things that I don't think we understand until we're parents. Things related to love, duty, and even heartache. If these are important to learn, it's best that we do so now. And, although I'm sure we'd be better parents when we're perfect, I doubt we'd learn as much. So, the breadth of the mortal experience is increased by parenting.

4) Life would be lonely, most feel a need for companionship. It would be sad to go through life alone (although this might be because of how things as set up not why things are set up as they are).

5) We get firsthand knowledge of God's relationship to us and the divine order as we recreate it on this world.

Anyway, that's the problem and the solutions we came up with.

Alright, that's what's on my mind. You just read a ton of text. Thanks for your patience.